Wedding ceremonies, a Japanese garden and an education center; after nearly 100 years of proposals, plans for Penn State's arboretum are taking form.

The 395-acre arboretum will be in the university-owned land between Park Avenue and the Mount Nittany Expressway.

The master plan is set for 56 acres of the tract of land and will include various kinds of gardens, a conservatory, a pond and other amenities, said Kim Steiner, professor of forest biology and director of the arboretum. Marshall Tyler Rausch, a landscape architecture firm in Pittsburgh, designed the arboretum.

"It's fabulous," Steiner said. "It's the best thing to happen to Penn State since I've been here."

Some of the gardens in the arboretum will be used for classes, while others will be meant for leisurely observation. It will also include demonstration gardens with rotating displays on subjects from research projects to food plants of American origin, Steiner said.

A conservatory will house plants that do not grow in the State College area, such as tropical and Mediterranean plants, Steiner said.

The master plan also includes a pond and an education center for meetings, conferences and short courses.

"It's going to be a very beautiful garden, and one thing people like to do in gardens is get married," Steiner said. "There will be the opportunity to do that (in the arboretum)."

Another feature of the arboretum will be a Japanese garden.

"It's a stylized look at nature from the human perspective, and a different way of showing nature in a garden setting," Steiner said.

While most of the arboretum plan is adult-oriented, there will also be a section for children, Steiner said. The children's section has not been definitively designed yet, but will focus on the education of children in kindergarten through sixth grade.

Some proposed topics for the children's section are the relationship between people, plants and insects, the natural features of the region, and water issues, Steiner said.

While the master plan for the first 56 acres of the arboretum is set, plans are also being made for other parts of it, such as a proposal for a 1.3-mile bike trail, Steiner said.

"In the other 350 acres there is a lot of ecosystem restoration to be done," said Ken Tamminga, a member of the arboretum task force.

Although the university reserved the land for the arboretum about 30 years ago and the master plan is done, construction will not start for a few years.

"We have no money yet," Steiner said about the arboretum that will cost tens of millions of dollars. "(The arboretum) will be built through the generosity of alumni and other people. When it's built depends on how fast the money comes in."

Tamminga said the plans for the arboretum will go through because they integrate the studies of every college at the university.

"It'll be a great place to be on campus, like the Creamery or Old Main," Tamminga said.

Like Tamminga, Steiner is optimistic about the future of the arboretum.

"It will transform the feeling people have for the beauty of Penn State," Steiner said. "It's really going to put us on the map."